Recipe | Pomegranate Glazed Turkey

Since I posted about my mini Thanksgiving feast I’ve been asked a number of times for the recipe. And seeing as Turkey will be the meat of choice in most households towards the end of this week I figured I should just give in to pressure.

The recipe actually takes inspiration from a number of online recipe sites. I often do this – I ask my good friend Google for ideas, read what feels like 100s of different recipes that catch my eye, and then cook something that is a result of how the recipes get messed around in my head. This sometimes works well (not always!), and on this particular occasion it worked just perfectly. I admit there was an awful lot going on at the same time, and lots of ingredients on my worktop, but it was very tasty and I’m sure you’re a more organised cook than me so will find it very simple.

Pomegranate Glazed Turkey

I started with a large turkey breast fillet – there’s only two of us and I had no need to buy a whole bird – I wanted enough for two meals. You can of course scale this up if you need to – just make more glaze.

For the glaze use an equal quantity of pomegranate juice (I used not-from concentrate juice from the fridge), balsamic vinegar and sugar (bog-standard granulated is fine). Put all this in a pan and allow the sugar to dissolve as the liquid heats up, then bring to a simmer and allow to reduce. Once the mixture has reduced to a syrup (this took quite some time – around half an hour), remove from the heat and stir in a couple of teaspoons of wholegrain mustard. You end up with a thick glaze that smells sweet and oh so tasty.

As my turkey breast was small it only took something like 60 minutes to cook (the butcher told me what temperature and how long), so I coated it with the glaze from the very beginning. If you are using a whole bird with skin on you will likely want to wait until the last 45 minutes to an hour before glazing the meat to stop it burning. You’ll need to baste the turkey often to make sure the flavours soak in – I think you can see the grains from the mustard stick nicely to the turkey thanks to the glaze.

The Side Dishes

You can’t just eat turkey!

At Christmas the potatoes are generally roasted, but for Thanksgiving I went for mashed – I love mashed potato! I boiled some white potatoes (skin on – it’s the best bit!) and fried chopped un-smoked bacon and fresh garlic. I mashed the potatoes with butter (of course) and stirred through the bacon and garlic before serving.

To give the meal some colour I chose green beans, but as one vegetable is never enough I added some other things into the mix. I fried off some chopped shallot, mushrooms and chilli (in the pan I’d used for the bacon and garlic) before adding the already cooked green beans to the pan and stir frying just before serving.

Once on our plates we added gravy, naturally.

Let me know if you try it and what you think.

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